


Old Names and New Titles

by rufeepeach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle jumps at the chance to babysit Henry for the night; Gold finds out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Names and New Titles

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpts are from ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ by Diana Wynne Jones

Rumpelstiltskin cannot understand how they ended up watching over the Saviour’s child for the evening.  
  
Really, little Henry has more family in Storybrooke than one could shake a magic wand at, what with his grandparents, his mother, and all of their extended relations. Rumpelstiltskin might be one of the few men in town who is not, in some way, related to the others: even Red Riding Hood has been adopted by Snow White as a royal sister.  
  
But somehow, everyone is too busy to look after the young man tonight. Emma is visiting with Jefferson the Hatter - she says it’s a call to check on the family, ensure that Grace is alright with her less-than-stable father, but the Saviour took a bottle of wine with her - and Snow White and Prince James are… otherwise occupied.  
  
Snow and Charming are off ‘finding’ each other in the woods. Rumpelstiltskin has never met a pair of adults so fond of hide and seek.   
  
Or, as they play it, strip hide-and-seek. Thirty years of repression apparently took their toll on the couple.  
  
No one in Storybrooke plans a midnight stroll on these nights, not after Jiminy Cricket caught an eyeful of Prince Charming’s bare arse chasing his true love. No one needs to see that.  
  
It’s a full moon, and so Jiminy and Red are in the basement beneath Rumpelstiltskin’s own cabin, waiting for the wolfstime to pass. The cloak has not yet been recovered, and Rumpelstiltskin needs time to weave a new one. He has to spin the magical threads by hand, after all.  
  
Everyone else is equally busy, and one way or another, Emma was complaining in Granny’s that morning about not being able to do her job - or meet handsome, eccentric men in mansions at night, as the case may be - with a child to look after. She didn’t want to cancel, but she didn’t want to upset Henry either: the boy has enough issues as it is.  
  
Rumpelstiltskin tried to keep his love under control in situations like this, but Belle’s generous heart didn’t take well to being held back, and she seemed very enthusiastic about having the boy stay over.  
  
She volunteered them as babysitters, and told Emma to have fun. Emma had thanked her, and scowled at the idea of ‘having fun’ with Jefferson - even though most of the town knew the truth - and Henry… Henry had been pleased.  
  
So now the Saviour’s child is coming down the stairs from unpacking in the guest room, and Rumpelstiltskin is left to wonder what children eat for meals these days.  
  
“What would you like for dinner then, lad?” Rumpelstiltskin turns from the cabinets as he senses the boy entering the kitchen, thinking it best to ask rather than guess and get it horribly wrong.  
  
“I’m not sure,” the child frowns, “What is there?”  
  
“I’m voting for pasta,” Belle pipes up from the living room, “Because I’m starving and it’s quick.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin smirks, “You’re always starving, dear.” He comments.  
  
She leans back so her head is visible in the doorway, solely to stick her tongue out at him. Of course she is always hungry: she’s lived entirely off two inadequate and soft meals a day for the past eternity.  
  
He doesn’t like to think about that: it makes him want to go out and track down Regina, wherever she is hiding, and blast her to smithereens.   
  
But Storybrooke isn’t ready for a true battle yet, and so he allows his love to be a little bit different, changed and perhaps a little chipped if not broken from her imprisonment, and the world keeps turning.  
  
“Pasta sounds good.” Henry weighs in, “You got any tomato sauce?”  
  
“I have tomatoes, onions, and cream, amongst other things,” Rumpelstiltskin smiles, “So yes, tomato sauce is doable.”  
  
“You’re going to make it?” Henry asked, a little taken aback, “But Belle’s in the living room. Doesn’t she cook?”  
  
“I’m the chef in this house, boy” he tells Henry, firmly, and then smiles, leans in close “Belle isn’t even allowed into the kitchen,” Rumpelstiltskin confides, in a stage whisper, “Insurance company deemed her a fire hazard.”  
  
“I heard that!” Belle protests from the sofa, but she doesn’t get up to do anything about it.  
  
Henry laughs, and Rumpelstiltskin winks conspiratorially. “Are you going to help then, lad, or are you going to go and hide from the cookery too?”  
  
“I’ll help.” He nods, determined, “We always eat take-out or easy things at home, because everyone’s too tired from teaching me and mom how to fight and all. I’d like to learn.”  
  
“Very well, then.” Rumpelstiltskin smiles, impressed with the lad, for it was rare in the old world to find a young man of any noble birth interested in more than just different ways to kill things. Even his Bae, a peasant by blood, was unwilling at first to learn how his food went from pantry to table. “Come along.”  
  
Belle finds them, an hour later, covered in tomatoes but smiling. Henry stirs the sauce and keeps an eye on the pasta, while Rumpelstiltskin keeps an eye on him and grates the cheese.   
  
She doesn’t ask how such a mess was made, and a snap of her love’s fingers has the place spotless again. Of course, a similar snap would have created a lavish three course dinner in a moment, but they’ve found that life in Storybrooke has given them both opinions about such things.  
  
Food is to be procured and prepared by human hands. Magic is unreliable at best, in this world, and one’s food is not something one wishes to mess with too much.  
  
Henry smiles when he takes his first bite - he shovels it into his mouth, and Rumpelstiltskin wonders what manners the Charming family is teaching their boy - “This is good!”  
  
“You sound surprised,” Rumpelstiltskin notes, “Did you not think sorcerers could cook?”  
  
“I thought…” Henry swallows, starts again, “You bargained for Belle to cook and clean, didn’t you? In the other world?” he’s got questions bubbling in his brain, this boy, and Rumpelstiltskin had suspected that that was why he was so happy to stay over in their spare room tonight.  
  
“Indeed I did,” he nods, humouring the child, “But the old world wasn’t like this one, lad. There were no references or resumes. I had no idea who I had bargained for.”  
  
“Your true love.” Henry smiles and nods, matter-of-factly, and Rumpelstiltskin catches Belle’s eyes across the table. She blushes, smiles, goes back to her food.   
  
“Yes,” Rumpelstiltskin agrees, “But also the clumsiest and most accident-prone woman I’ve ever met.”  
  
“Hey!” Belle protests, “It wasn’t like there were jeans and sneakers in the old world. You try cleaning all day in kitten heels.”  
  
“You fell off a ladder and broke my tea set within a week of entering the castle, love.” He smirks, “Then you set fire to the kitchen and overused some rather delicate magic sending a message to tell me about it. And that’s not even mentioning the chilli soup or the salt in the tea.”  
  
“Shut up.” Belle reaches around Henry to smack Rumpelstiltskin’s arm, “And you’re forgetting,” she turns to the boy, smiles the smile Rumpelstiltskin knows is the one that made him fall in love with her in the first place, warm and sweet and a little bit wicked in the best way, “I picked him as much as he picked me.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Henry’s face creases, “You would have died, right, if you had said no?”  
  
“There were other wizards, I suppose.” Belle shrugs, “Or we would have run. Either way, I wasn’t kidnapped and held hostage, and no one expected the princess to be brave.”  
  
“Especially not that idiot of a knight.” Rumpelstiltskin mutters, and Belle watches him closely.  
  
“Gaston is still in physiotherapy, so I’d be nicer about him if I were you.” She says, her voice laced with more than just a little warning.  
  
“Blue Fairy give his legs back but not tell him how to use them?” he snarks, a little sharply, for the woman is still revered in town and he feels that a gross misjudgement by all involved, especially when he himself is still treated as something of a pariah, “What a surprise.”  
  
Belle glares at him, as if he’s being too harsh in front of a child, but Rumpelstiltskin knows Henry is brighter, stronger, older than he looks. He reads, so he should be able to take onboard an opposing opinion to the one he’s taught. And the lad only looks intrigued, not upset or betrayed.  
  
“What happened to Gaston?” Henry asks, curiously, “He’s the man with the wheelchair, isn’t he, who’s now on crutches? He’s not really in the book.”  
  
Belle scoffs, “My employer decided he’d be prettier as a rose.” She says, as she finishes her meal and goes to the counter to get seconds. She puts her hand on Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulder as she passes, “Isn’t that right, love?”  
  
“Didn’t kill him.” He points out, “You did more damage than I, dearest.”  
  
“He didn’t tell me the flower was my ex-fiancé .” Belle explains, “So I went and trimmed poor Gaston’s stem, and unknowlingly lopped off his lower legs. Thank the gods he wasn’t conscious and doesn’t remember…”  
  
“I thought it was a romantic gesture, myself.” Rumpelstiltskin waves a hand, “Present a lady with a rose, as a token of affection.” He grins, wickedly, “Also neatly got rid of the competition.”  
  
Belle snorts again, and presses a kiss to the top of his head as she passes with her new plate of food. They’ve had this conversation a few times, now, and their differences are sorted through, the sting taken from their words. They just enjoy the argument, sometimes, to banter and snipe at each other. Even if this one can’t, due to their small guest, end as pleasurably as some of the others.  
  
“There was never any competition,” Belle tells Henry, in an undertone, “Leather pants saw to that.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin grins, and Henry giggles. “My grandma mentioned that.” He says, “Grandpa, too, actually. But the book doesn’t really mention wardrobe.”  
  
Belle waves a hand, and Rumpelstiltskin smirks as he recognises the gesture as one of his own, “Just think leather on anyone good looking, and anyone magical, velvet for the rest. The better looking or more magically powerful someone was, usually the more leather they wore. I never found out why.” She shoots Rumpelstiltskin a look, “He owned half a herd in leathers, and it was a nightmare to wash.”  
  
“Didn’t hear you complaining about the view.” He winks, and Henry looks as if he doesn’t quite understand why Belle blushes. Just as well, really.  
  
“Anyway,” she breezes past the topic, and Rumpelstiltskin smirks, “Point is, Gaston never really wanted me, and I never wanted him. So there was no need for transformation or allowing me to unknowingly maim the poor man.”  
  
“He lived, didn’t he?”  
  
“Just about, yes.”  
  
“Well then.”  
  
Henry glances between them as if watching a tennis match, and then yawns rather widely. It’s around nine-thirty pm, Rumpelstiltskin realises, and the lad is not really allowed up this late as it is.  
  
But they’d spent enough time before dinner going through the house and explaining to the child what each trinket meant, and who they belonged to, and what story they had been ripped from. Rumpelstiltskin had always enjoyed an audience, and Henry drank up information and stories ravenously.  
  
“Time to get you to bed, I think.” Belle smiles to the child, and Henry nods a little reluctantly.  
  
“Mom lets me stay up,” he protests, but then his face clouds, “Grandma doesn’t, though.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin chuckles, “No, I imagine Snow White would be a stickler for bedtimes. And she has a sword to back up her opinion.”  
  
Henry nods, and Belle smiles to him, “Lets see to your room.”  
  
—  
  
Belle hears, as she leaves Rum to say goodnight to Henry, the boy beg for a story. Not a real story, he says, not one that really happened. He wants a book read to him, one he brought with him.  
  
Snow has been trying, with Emma’s help, to find fiction for Henry to read, to make sure he understands that not every book really happened.  
  
It’s a patronising thought, Belle thinks, but if it gets the boy reading outside of that one book, keeps him enjoying stories for the sake of them, then she can’t object.  
  
She leaves her love to it - she hates reading aloud, she can’t get the words out right, and she’d like to see Rum and Henry interacting without her around - and goes downstairs to finish the dishes and clean up.  
  
She comes up a half hour later to find Henry curled with his eyes closed in his bed, and Rum still reading from the armchair by the boy’s bed.  
  
“‘There was nothing outside.” She hears him read, “It was neither black, nor grey, nor white. It was not thick, or transparent. It did not move. It had no smell and no feel. When Sophie put a very cautious finger out into it, it was neither hot nor cold. It felt of nothing. It seemed utterly and completely nothing.’”  
  
Henry is asleep: he rolls over and snuffles, his eyes closed and fist curled by his face. Rumpelstiltskin notices, and glances to him, his voice trailing off.  
  
He looks as if he’s about to stop reading altogether, but Belle shakes her head, says quietly, “Go on.”  
  
“Love?” he frowns.  
  
“I like your voice,” she smiles, comes to sit at his feet, legs crossed like a child, “And he fell asleep to the story, so you won’t wake him. Keep going.”  
  
He smiles, softly, and nods, “As you wish.”  
  
She exhales slowly, happily, and settles against his chair, head on his lap as he keeps reading.  
  
“‘”What is this?” she asked Calcifer. Calcifer was as interested as Sophie. His blue face was leaning right out of the grate to see the door. He had forgotten the fog. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I only maintain it. All I know is that it’s on the side of the castle that on one can walk around. It feels quite far away.”’”  
  
Belle sighs, her head on his knees, as the hand not holding the book comes to stroke through her hair, running his fingers through the smooth waves and scratching her scalp lightly with his nails.   
  
She is tempted to purr like a cat, his voice and the feel of his hand on her head so soothing and perfect. She could fall asleep right here, she thinks, and it’d be work the neck ache in the morning.  
  
He wouldn’t move, either, she knows. If she slipped into sleep here, he would stay all night to keep her comfortable.  
  
That means the world, even if she’s determined that it won’t be necessary.  
  
“‘”It feels beyond the moon!” said Sophie. She shut the door and turned the knob green-downwards. She hesitated a minute and then started to hobble to the stairs. “He’s locked it,” said Calcifer. “He told me to tell you if you tried to snoop again.”’”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin pauses, looks at Belle’s face, smiling softly up at him from his lap, “Now, who does that sound like?” he teases, quietly.  
  
“I never snooped,” she says, “I explored. You told me to clean the Dark Castle, after all, and you didn’t say where not to go.”  
  
“Yes,” he nods, “Of course, reading the scrolls in my study was cleaning.”  
  
She giggles, buries the sound in his lap, “Was curious.”  
  
“Snooping.” He corrects, “Something the woman in this novel seems to do often. And she’s a cleaning lady to a sorcerer, too, oddly enough.”  
  
“What book is it, anyway?”  
  
“Howl’s Moving Castle.” He says, “Mary Margaret bought it from my shop, apparently Mr Gold read it at some point. I think the wizard marries his cleaner, at the end, although I don’t remember much else.”  
  
“Hm, I wonder why you liked it, then.” She smiles, a little knowingly, and he puts the book down, cups her face in his hands and pulls her up to him. She stands and leans over, kisses him deeply as he pulls her onto his lap, “Is he leatherclad and cursed too, then?”  
  
“No,” Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head, “She is cursed, he’s blonde and a little heartless.”  
  
“Hm, shame,” Belle plays with his hair absently, “Poor girl, missing out on the leather.”  
  
“Do you miss it?” he asks, curiously, “The leather?”  
  
“No.” She says, immediately, curling herself closer into him, “I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing it again…” she smiles, a little wickedly, “But the suits are just as good, and so much easier to clean. Also: ties are useful.”  
  
“How so?” he asks, smirking because he knows the answer will be one he likes.  
  
She takes hold of the place below the knot in his purple silk necktie, and pulls him close, kisses him deep. When she lets him go, he is breathless, and she whispers, “That’s how.” Against his lips.  
  
“Indeed.” He smiles, and holds her even closer, so they’re pressed tight in the armchair. Henry snuffles in his sleep, curls tighter under the bedclothes, and Belle sighs.  
  
“We can’t do this here.” She says, “Not tonight. We don’t want to scar the kid.”  
  
“He’s living with the Charmings, dear,” he reminds, “We’re restrained by comparison.”  
  
She nods, conceding the point, “At least in public.” She looks at the boy again, smiles, “He’s sweet when he’s sleeping.”  
  
“Why did you want him here?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, “You leapt at the chance, why?”  
  
“No reason.” She lies, and she can tell he sees through her instantly.  
  
“Belle…”  
  
“None at all.”  
  
“Come on…”  
  
“Really, honestly, maybe…” she chews her lip, and his concern is heartbreaking.  
  
“What is it, sweet?” he asks, “What aren’t you telling me?”  
  
“He needed a sitter, and I…” she sighs, and feels the lurch as if she is about to jump off a cliff. Do the brave thing… “I needed to see you around a child. Properly. Soothe my nerves a bit. Hunting and skinning children for their pelts and all that, and even if it was a quip, it made me nervous.”  
  
“I see.” He nods, frowning because of course he doesn’t, not at all, “And why was that? What’re you nervous about? Some joke I made thirty years ago?”  
  
“No, no,” she shakes her head and smiles, shakily, “But, um, you know how we’ve been… well…” she gestures between them, to how she’s sat on his lap, “You know…”  
  
“Shagging like rabbits in every room of the house?” he suggests, very quietly, smirking, and he chuckles at the shock on her face, “Yes, I’m aware.”  
  
“Well, yes,” she continues, blushing furiously, “That. Well, apparently… we haven’t been… Red mentioned something about protection, today, and I didn’t even know we’d need it but everyone says we do and you never said anything, and I’m happy and everything but-“  
  
“Belle, Belle, calm down,” he’s staring at her, every muscle tense, and if he’s telling her to be calm then he’s not following his own advice, “Slowly, what is it?”  
  
“I’m ecstatic. You have to know that.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“About how when people are… together, like us, without protection… things happen.”  
  
“And has… something happened?”  
  
“Yes… I’m… I’m pregnant.” She says, in a rush, and the look on his face is not happy or sad, just entirely stunned, “About a month along, I think.”  
  
He nods, thinks for just a moment, and then takes her by surprise as he stands. She feels the prickle of magic he uses to hold her in his arms, carrying her as he did so long ago, when she fell from the curtains into the arms of her future lover.   
  
He takes her from the child’s room, the book left on the chair, and across the landing, depositing her on their bed. She gives a startled yelp, but he swallows it into his own mouth as he quickly joins her, kissing her desperately, all tongue and lips and teeth.  
  
“Rum?” she gasps, breathlessly, as he kisses every part of her face, forehead and cheeks, the tip of her nose and her chin, lying just beside her so his hands can run over her still-flat stomach.  
  
“Shh,” he kisses her lips again, “Give me a moment.”  
  
“Okay.” She nods, puzzled but pleased he doesn’t seem sad or angry, and he goes back to kissing down her neck, across her collarbone, his mouth restless as he kisses and licks and nips, very lightly, at every inch of skin he can find.  
  
“When did you find out?” he asks, his lips still buried in her side of her throat.  
  
“About three days ago.” She admits, gasping as he sucks on her skin, hard enough to leave a mark.  
  
“And you were afraid to tell me?” he asks, nipping her earlobe and nuzzling the side of her jaw, “For three days.”  
  
She swallows hard, her hands having come to clutch at his hair, and nods. “Yes, I was afraid you’d be upset.”  
  
He pulls back, stares at her, frowning although his smile doesn’t waver, “How could you think that?”  
  
“So… you’re alright? With this?”  
  
“With the fact that my true love has my child in her belly, and is, in her own words, ecstatic? Dearie, there isn’t a word for how perfectly overjoyed I am right now.”  
  
“Oh.” She exhales, beaming, “Thank goodness.”  
  
He smiles with her, and she knows they’re sharing dopey, goofy grins but she can’t for the life of her think of how to stop. He leans down and kisses her, all soft tenderness, one hand cradling her cheek and wiping a tear she didn’t know she’d even shed away from her cheekbone.  
  
“Unfortunately,” he sighs, as they break apart, “This does change things.”  
  
“Oh, yes, of course.” She nods, “There’s so much to consider, bringing a child into this mess, oh gods we’ve made a mess…” she’s panicking, all of a sudden, thinking about the horrors their baby may have to face, the dangers of protecting an infant in a war zone.   
  
But they can do it, so long as Rumpelstiltskin holds her hand as they do.   
  
“Don’t worry, dearie, shh, hey, calm now,” he kisses her forehead, “All will be well, there’s just something that needs hurrying along now.”  
  
“Oh,” she blinks, because she’s trying not to cry from sheer emotion, “And what’s that?”  
  
“Three days it took you to work up the nerve to share that we’re expecting,” he says, “And I can gripe that you should have said something sooner all I like, wish that we’d spent three extra days celebrating the miracle you’re holding inside you.” She smiles, beaming again, as he brushes her nose with his, “But… I’ve been worse. Far worse. I should have… I should have said this sooner, and I’m sorry it took over a month between the thought and the deed, but I’m a coward, dearie, and I can’t help but be terrified all the same.”  
  
“Terrified of what?” she asks, startled, “Rum, what is there to be scared of? What haven’t you told me?”  
  
“Not told.” He corrects, “Asked.”  
  
He reaches down into his jacket pocket, and pulls something out. She scrambles beneath him to sit up straight, back against the headboard, to see what he holds in his hands.  
  
He kneels before her - magic has cured his knee once more, and so kneeling is no discomfort - and hands her a small box. “Open it.” He instructs, and as she does he apologises, “I’ve carried it for a month, you know, ever since Snow White talked about reaffirming her vows to her prince, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but-“  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin.” She smiles, and he looks up at her, to see her wearing the golden ring already on her finger, the diamond sparkling in the lamplight, “Stop talking.”  
  
He smiles uncertainly, burning hope behind his eyes, “You’re wearing it.”  
  
“Clever boy,” she coos, pressing a kiss to his lips, “Nothing gets past you.”  
  
“So you’re…” he coughs, clears his throat, “I mean, you’ll say yes? Marry me?”  
  
“I’m already pregnant, living with you, and deeply in love with you.” She says, and his smile could split his face in two, “Of course I want to marry you!”  
  
She can barely get the last word out before he’s tackled her, careful to put no weight on her stomach as he kisses her furiously, hands buried in her hair, lips working desperately against hers as his tongue plunders her mouth.   
  
She pushes him, so they’re on their sides, her arms around him and his around her, kissing like they’ll never have to stop.  
  
But when they do finally break apart for air, he holds up her hand to admire the ring there, gleaming in the golden light, perfectly sized for her diminutive fingers.  
  
“My bride to be,” he murmurs, “And the mother of my unborn child,” his voice holds so much joy, so much wonder and disbelief, and Belle can feel the echo of it deep within her heart, “You’ve gained a few new titles today, love.”  
  
“That’s the one I like best.” She says, as she snuggles against his chest, and his arms tighten around her, holding her there, her head against his heart. It’s racing, the beat a match for hers.  
  
“Which?” he asks, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.  
  
“‘Love’,” she sighs, burrowing in as far as possible, her eyes drifting closed, “I like it best when you call me your love.”  
  
“Hmm,” his voice rumbles through her, makes her toes tingle and curl, “Me too.”


End file.
